Walker had a long career in theater, eventually rising to appear in Broadway productions, beginning with 1915's
Sinners, which was written by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, Owen Davis. The play was directed by
William A. Brady, and also starred his daughter,
Alice Brady, as well as
Tony Award-winning actor
John Cromwell From 1915 through 1930 he would appear over a dozen times on the Great White Way, with some of his more notable plays being
An American Tragedy, taken from the best-selling novel of the same name by
Theodore Dreiser, and
Holiday, produced and directed by
Arthur Hopkins. During the late 1910s, and through the 1920s, Walker would combine his stage career with appearances in several films, having mostly starring or featured roles over half a dozen. His debut film performance would be in the film ''American – That's All
(1917), in which he starred alongside Jack Devereaux and Winifred Allen. He appeared in his last Broadway production in 1930, with a featured role in Rebound
, written by Academy Award winner, Donald Ogden Stewart. In 1931, Walker would devote his acting energies to the big screen, appearing in over 75 films throughout the rest of the decade. In one of his first films during this decade, he would reprise his role of Henry Jaffrey in the film version of Rebound'', which starred
Ina Claire,
Robert Ames and
Myrna Loy. '' (1934) Walker appeared in over 40 feature films during his career, mostly in supporting or smaller roles. Some of the more notable films in which he had either a featured or supporting role included 1933's
Flying Down to Rio, starring
Dolores del Río, and which featured the first on-screen pairing of
Fred Astaire and
Ginger Rogers; the original version of
Imitation of Life in 1934, starring
Claudette Colbert and
Warren William; 1935's version of
Magnificent Obsession, starring
Irene Dunne and
Robert Taylor (in which Walker had a small role); the
Mae West vehicle
Go West, Young Man in 1936, and as Benjamin Franklin in the 1938 film,
Marie Antoinette, starring
Norma Shearer and
Tyrone Power. He would reprise the role of Franklin for the 1938 short,
The Declaration of Independence. Walker's final screen appearance in a feature film was in a supporting role in
The Cowboy and the Lady, starring
Gary Cooper and
Merle Oberon in 1938. Walker died of
pneumonia at age 83 on December 4, 1947, in St. Francis Hospital in Honolulu, Hawaii, where he had been visiting his daughter and son-in-law. ==Filmography==